The Genius — Margaret Potter

Margaret Horton Potter (1881-1911) was the author of Social Lion (1899), Uncanonized: A Romance of English Monarchism (1900), House of De Mailly (1901), Istar of Babylon: A Phantasy (1902), Castle of Twilight (1903), The Flame-Gatherers (1904), The Fire of Spring (1905), The Genius (1906), Princess (1907) and Golden Ladder (1908). "In the Western world of the revised calendar it was the evening of January twelfth. In Russia it was New Year's night, of the year 1840. The year was twenty-three hours old; for the bells of the three churches in Klin had just chimed eleven times. But in "Maidonovo, " a countryplace of the Gregorievs just outside the town, the mistress of the house, Princess Sophia, had not yet gone to bed. She had been alone in her bedroom for some time, and was now on her knees before a little shrine presided over by a great, golden ikon, with its flaring colors, and stiff, Byzantine figures of Mary and the infant Christ. "